


Washed Up

by dianasilverman



Series: Lethal Speculation [2]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Post-Career of Evil, Written Pre-Lethal White
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 19:37:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16024601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dianasilverman/pseuds/dianasilverman
Summary: Robin's honeymoon is perfect, at least on the surface.





	Washed Up

The dark does die as the curtain is drawn, and somebody's eyes must meet the dawn.  
Bob Dylan, "Restless Farewell"

The first morning of Robin's honeymoon found her in bed, pretending to sleep. The sun was shaking off the Yorkshire fog outside, turning the hills past her window pink. Somewhere, there were birds singing. Matthew was snoring on the pillow beside her. She closed her eyes tight against the pastoral scene. There was a headache starting in her temples, probably from too much wine the night before, and she hoped to stave it off. Although everything around her was peaceful, her heart was racing and the nape of her neck was damp. She checked her phone quickly, then chided herself for expecting a call this early. If she could just fall back asleep, she reasoned, these feelings would pass. After all, she had no excuse for feeling anything besides bliss.

Her new husband woke her just after five that morning. She smiled and kissed him, daring her unease to return. It didn't. This was, after all, a moment ten years in the making.

It wasn't until they reached Heathrow that Robin found out where they were going. Their destination turned out to be Fiji. She wondered why she hadn't been curious before, but was distracted by the bustle of organising suitcases, locating passports, and going through security. When they finally got to their seats, she was already travel weary. The perpetual motion of the past few days had drained her more than she'd realised until she was finally still.

She surreptitiously checked her phone, hoping she'd missed a call in the hubbub. None was forthcoming. Sighing, she put her phone in airplane mode. Her curiosity would have to wait for now. Besides, it would be uncomfortable taking a call from Cormoran here, even though there was no reason why it should be. Matthew asked if she was alright, so she pleaded exhaustion, took a sleeping pill, and fell into a restless stupor.

She spent hours this way, only waking to register that the airport in Los Angeles was under construction, necessitating hours of taxiing. Matthew's grumbling made the wait worse.

Somewhere over the Pacific, she jolted suddenly awake. Her strange sense of unreality was gradually wearing away. In its absence, she felt raw and jittery. Her heart was hammering again. Rising from her seat, she snuck past her snoring husband and several irritated passengers and made her way to the loo. Her face in the tiny dark mirror was unfamiliar to her.

"Mrs. Matthew Cunliffe", she whispered, saying it out loud for the first time since it had been true. Her reflection blinked back at her, expression inscrutable.

'Mrs. Matthew Cunliffe looks a wreck', she thought, and resolved to get some sun in Fiji. Proper food might not hurt either, as she was not sure this weight suited her. The outline of her collarbones was starkly visible even through the thick jumper she'd brought for the plane and her cheeks looked hollow. On her way back to her seat, she paused to look down from a window, but saw only thick clouds and the blinking of a light on the wing. While she knew the ocean was far below them, they could have been anywhere.

Unable to fall back asleep, she went back over the details of the wedding in her mind, trying to salvage meaning from snippets of half-finished conversation.

Never in her life had she been so happy to see someone as she had been when Cormoran had unceremoniously announced his presence in the church. For a moment, she'd felt as though everything was going to be alright after all, weeks of worry and misery lifted from her shoulders. There had been a question in his eyes when he looked at her, and her answer had been "I do.” In her elation, the expected line had passed easily from her lips without consideration for its consequences. She did not want to consider whether she regretted the vow. Her wedding had turned out the way it had been intended to, and there could be no changing the past.

She had wanted so badly to talk to him after the ceremony, but they had only been able to steal a few charged moments that had left her with more questions than answers. Most of all, she wanted to know what could have possibly compelled him to come all the way to Yorkshire. For a moment when she saw him at the back of the church, she had thought he was there to stop the wedding, but he'd only slipped into a pew as inconspicuously as was possible for a man in his condition. She had started to ask him when they were alone but she had trailed off. He had been watching her intently, and she had had the uncomfortable feeling that he saw too much. At least he was expecting her back at work. If nothing else could have come from their conversation, that was enough. All that was left now was to keep from counting the days.

Immediately upon landing, she flipped off airplane mode, connecting to service and desperately awaiting the missed call notification. Instead, she received a flurry of texts from her mother, as well as miscellaneous well wishes from people she hardly knew.

It took them nearly all of the third day of their honeymoon to get to the resort that was their destination. From the airport in Nadi, it was a four hour drive by hotel shuttle, passing through lush green hills, scraggly farm fields, and miles upon miles of breathtaking turquoise coastline. The country fascinated Robin; it was wild, but not in the way she was accustomed to. The rolling green hills of Yorkshire were full of neat little towns, nature preserves, and omnipresent livestock. Here, they passed instead collections of riotously coloured tin houses, barefoot children playing soccer, and central markets selling saris, incense and mysterious fruits. One roadside stand was selling an odd mixture of exotic dishes she'd never heard of, and Coca-Cola.

In the sleek air-conditioned bus, dressed in the new sandals and blouse she'd bought for this occasion, she felt suddenly like an intruder, even though everyone they'd met had been perfectly welcoming. She doubted the islanders would embrace tourists as they did if they had other choices. She could not tell what Matthew was thinking beside her, but suspected his thoughts did not parallel her own.

The next few days of her honeymoon passed in genuine enjoyment. Their resort was situated directly on the ocean, a wide white sand beach stretching to the waves just past their door. Besides the spectacular beach, it boasted a restaurant, a spa, and a golf course which Matthew was eager to take advantage of. It offered the kind of generic luxury, she reflected, that could have been purchased anywhere on the Continent, without having to spend four days in transit. Nevertheless, she spent hours at the beach, basking in the sun, and letting the gentle warm waters soothe her soul. At dinner, she ate spinach stewed in coconut milk and slices of deep orange melon that tasted like perfume. Matthew requested steak. Their nights were spent in the gigantic white bed in their suite, down in a cloud of white sheets. Robin pulled rank in favor of leaving the windows open instead of running the air conditioning, so their room was suffused with sultry ocean air. Gradually, her colour returned along with her curves. On the sixth day, she took this too far, falling asleep on the beach after a few too many fruity drinks and acquiring a deep red burn that diminished the comfort of her new holiday-wear.

For a time, she blamed Cormoran's silence on his busyness. After all, she had left him with the agency in pieces. It would need rebuilding. As if this weren't enough, the press was bound to be crowding Denmark Street and causing chaos. The idea of pushing through hordes of cameramen in order to spend hours doing paperwork was more appealing than she wanted to admit. 'The weather's probably rubbish, too', she thought wistfully, enjoying the warm breeze on her bare shoulders.

Soon, though, her patience for quiet was wearing thin, along with her patience with idyllic relaxation. Her legs were covered in sand flea bites, her sunburn was peeling, and she was miscellaneously sore all over. The weather had worsened, thick clouds hanging over the ocean threatening rain, but delivering only sweltering heat and humidity. She was also tiring of Matthew's ardor, pleading a headache, sunburn, and inebriation. These excuses were made guiltily, as it was not fair to him for her to feel this way.

One night, she snuck from their room while Matthew was sleeping. Fed up with Cormoran's lack of communication, she had decided to call him, if only for the purpose of chewing him out. She had considered calling him before, of course, but her husband was never gone from her side. They had not had a conversation yet about her plan to continue working for Cormoran, and she knew that one would undoubtedly ruin what was left of her good mood.

Cormoran’s number was no longer in her contacts. At first, she wrote this off as an issue with her international service, distracted by the memory of the day she showed him how to use the contacts feature in his phone. He had been simply memorising all of his important numbers, keeping an impressively long list in his head. She had called him old, and they had laughed at his expense. She smiled a little at the recollection, her resentment momentarily forgotten.

She entered his number manually, and was met with a bright red icon informing her that she was about to call a blocked number. Although the night air was balmy, she was suddenly cold all over. As she searched her phone's settings for call blocking, she already knew what she would find. The sight of the number still gave her a sick jolt. 'That fucker', she thought savagely, hot tears stinging her eyes. Crying did not seem to be the appropriate response. She wanted to rage, to storm inside and give Matthew hell for all he had done to her, to shatter what was left of them apart like it was nothing. Instead, she curled into herself in the sand, awash in confusion. The swirling stars overhead and the wide ocean below bore silent witness to her grief.

The next morning marked the beginning of their last full day on the island. Robin, cried entirely hollow some hours before, was relieved to have made it back from the beach before Matthew woke. She was still unsure of what to do, and needed the long hours ahead to unfold peacefully so she could think.

Matthew, for his part, was disappointed in her insistence on spending yet another day in quiet reverie by the waves instead of participating in all the expensive resort had to offer. His complaints fell on deaf ears, however, and he sensed something in Robin's eyes that made him hesitant to argue. He proceeded to the golf course sulkily.

Alone, she gingerly pulled a bathing suit on over the remains of her sunburn and made her way to the shore. She waded in slowly, feeling the gentle current against her skin. The water was warm, its depths seductive. Soon, it was over her head, the bottom somewhere below. She let herself sink deeper, shaking the sand out of her hair and willing herself towards clarity. Instead, her lungs burned fiercely and she emerged, gasping and treading water.

There was no sun that day. The clouds that had been looming in the distance were now hanging low overhead, turning the sky deep slate grey. In the half light, the lush tropical colours became blinding. Robin sat in the sand once again, gazing out at the coming storm and finding more questions than answers.

She was homesick, she realised, missing London with an ache in her chest. With her eyes trained on the distant horizon, she imagined it; the winding streets, the constant bustle, the way the city looked with a red sun setting behind the perpetual haze. She missed surly strangers on the Tube, and glowing pub windows at twilight, and even dark alleyways full of menace. Gritty, dirty, and dark, London was still beautiful and still her home. It had made her who she was.

Up until she had started working for Strike, she realised, London had seemed alien to her. Before that fateful morning, she had only been feigning comfort, still falling asleep thinking of Yorkshire and hating the traffic outside her window. But her job had changed everything, so that now she missed noise instead of quiet. She missed the office especially, missed early mornings and late nights, neat stacks of case files and colourful stationary, cups upon cups of tea. She missed the thrill of following suspects and digging through papers, always with the electric edge of knowing that the answers they sought could be around any corner. Detective work was her passion and she wanted to return to it.

Most of all, she missed Cormoran. Trying to picture him, though, was like trying to hold her breath underwater, confusion and despair choking her. She hated that thoughts of him had become so intermingled with her anger and distress surrounding Matthew. It made him too hard to think about, even though she wanted to.

She tried to sort through everything she was feeling, searching for solutions and plans. Tired as she was from a long night of crying, her thoughts were murky and half formed, leaving her once again with more questions than answers. She ended up dozing in the sand, and waking with her cheeks flushed from restless dreams that she was ashamed to think back on.

Defeated, she wandered back to their room to dress for dinner. At the bottom of her suitcase, she saw a flash of bright green that tempted her for just a moment. Angry with Matthew as she was, it would have been cathartic to wear it, but the dress deserved better than that. She met him by the restaurant, and, just for a few hours, they were almost happy. Looking across the table at him in the flickering torchlight, she could remember when what he meant to her was so much simpler.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that this was their last good night together, and so she let it be perfect. She didn't deceive him exactly, but she decided to let certain conversations wait until they were back to London.

As the night closed in around them thick and dark, Matthew wrapped his arms around her in their bed, brushing her sandy hair aside and kissing her neck. She felt suddenly sick to her stomach. Knowing that the man in bed with her was the same one who had gone behind her back so cruelly was too much for her. She buried her head in her pillow.

"Not tonight, Matt. I've had too much to drink, and besides, we have to be up early."

"C'mon, Rob", he teased, clearly feeling he was seducing her.

"I spent too much time in the sun. I'm sorry".

"You said that the other day, too, remember?", he accused.

"I said 'no'", she snapped, eyes filling with tears.

"Christ, love, I just thought since it’s our last night, we ought to celebrate. But if you don't want to, we don't have to." His tone was a mix of accusatory, magnanimous, and pleading that was becoming all too familiar.

"Fine." She rolled over, pushing him back into the mattress and wrapping her legs around him. Sometimes it was easier not to argue.

He usually preferred to be on top, but on this particular night, he was similarly disinclined towards arguing.

Outside their window, the oppressive clouds cracked open, rain lashing the shore and palm trees straining against the wind. The storm whipped the ocean into a frenzy, turning the serene beach treacherous. Thunder shook their bed. Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating Robin, who glowed fiercely in its light. She was as beautiful as ever, but even Matthew noticed that her eyes were frighteningly distant. They were fixed, not on her lover beneath her, but on the horizon far out over the violent sea. He could not have dared imagine how truly far away she was. Another flash saw her bite her lip, rake her nails across her own thighs, and break to pieces above him.

The storm was finally subsiding when Robin crept from the bed, unwrapping herself from Matthew. She ran her fingers along the windowsill, finding it slicked with rain that had blown in. Standing naked, she brushed her hair roughly across one shoulder, feeling sick with herself.

There were varying definitions, she knew, of infidelity. Clients came to them with accusations ranging from a significant glance at a secretary to lipstick found on a collar. Cheating lived in a moral grey area in which it fell to individuals to decide what was unbearable or unconscionable. Just a few short minutes ago, Robin had crossed a line. Even as she'd fucked her husband, she'd been unfaithful. No one else would ever know, but the stain was still there. No amount of justification or moral equivocation could change that.

Something had to be done. Even if Cormoran were completely eliminated from the equation, 'and he might be when you tell him, you have no idea how he'll react', she reminded herself, she could not stay with Matthew. It was time to admit that. Clarity, which had evaded her before, washed over her now. Plans needed to be made, steps put in place, difficult conversations conquered. She had failed to leave Matthew before, she would not fail again.

The day dawned slowly, revealing an island cloaked in mist and wonder. Birds sang sweetly in the hills and the air was sweet with the scent of rain. The ocean was as calm and turquoise as ever, not betraying a hint of its earlier tumult. The palm trees shook off the last of the rain with a sound like sighing. For the first time, the quiet calmed Robin's heartbeat. She was no longer scared to be alone with her thoughts.

On their way back, she sorted through her feelings and solidified her plans. If Matthew noticed a change in her, he did not mention it. She promised herself that she would tell him everything the moment they crossed their doorstep, but for now, she wanted to finish saying goodbye, both to the island, and to the memories of ten years of love. She hoped that someday she could look back on these moments without bitterness and appreciate what had been good about their time here and their time together. High over the Pacific, she looked down into the clouds and could almost taste the salt of the ocean far below.

Her first day back at work arrived. In her hotel room, she dug through her boxes and suitcases until she found a green blouse that wasn't too wrinkled. It wasn't the dress, but it would do. As she hunted for socks, she noticed a collection of pearly white shells from Fiji. She arrayed them on the windowsill that faced the ancient city below. She was going to be here for a few days anyway.

Mrs. Matthew Cunliffe still gazed back at her when she checked her reflection in the wide mirror above her sink, but that was no matter. Robin Ellacott was returning, little by little. The deep shadows betrayed hardship, but they were fiercely determined. Her new freckles suited her, as did the weight she'd gained. Most importantly, her resolve was slowly coming back. She winked at her reflection.

Ascending the metal staircase in Denmark Street was like coming home. The shabby, peeling paint, the old letterbox, and even the smell filled her chest with warmth. She did not let herself get carried away, but she still loved being back.

Just before opening the door, she paused. There was so much to say that she did not even know where to start. And, knowing how conversations with Cormoran usually proceeded, she would either have to be assertive or get him drunk. Since it was only quarter to nine, confidence would have to do. She was realistic; she knew that she could not tell him everything today. But she breathed in, braced herself, and prepared at least to start. For now, that could be enough.

"Cormoran?", she called into the silence, breathless with nerves.

"In here." His tone betrayed nothing, which set her on edge. 'Just act normal', she willed herself, picking up a stack of envelopes to stop herself fidgeting.

"I've got the post. Nothing too gory for regular envelopes, at least."

He was exactly as she had remembered him. She did not know when she'd found time to memorise his face so thoroughly that even the lines between his brows and the shadow beneath his jaw were familiar, but they were. Only the shape of his nose was unknown to her, reassembled differently yet again. On anyone else, his scowl would have been intimidating, but she knew there was warmth beneath it. Held in his steady gaze, she was becoming both vulnerable and strong, ready to say her piece.

She could see that he was deciding whether to say something. She did not have time for pleasantries.

"We need to talk." Suddenly calm and ready, she slid into the chair across from him, scattering letters across his desk. Then she took one of his hands in both of hers, surprising them both.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to ZoeSong for editing this for me. It is vastly more professional thanks to her.


End file.
